


I do not desire to change my ways

by Nighthaunting



Category: Castlevania (Cartoon), 悪魔城ドラキュラ | Castlevania Series
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Blood Drinking, Blood and Injury, Drama & Romance, F/M, Fictional Religion & Theology, Gen, Magic and Science, Medieval Medicine, Period Typical Attitudes, Reunions, Vampires, Witchcraft, lisa loves vlad and also science, vlad is that i thought you were never coming back ever so i trashed the house dog
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-13
Updated: 2017-07-15
Packaged: 2018-12-01 16:30:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11490282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nighthaunting/pseuds/Nighthaunting
Summary: the churches, lord, all the dark churches / stooped over my cradle once: / i came clear, but my god's down / under the weight of all that stone: / both my power and my luck since / have kicked at the world and slept in ditchesLisa Fahrenheit Tepes does not go gentle into that good night. Or rather: when she does, it's because she's been prepared to do so and would like to avoid the mob with flaming torches, thank you very much.





	1. the world and its dayfall

**Author's Note:**

> Title and quotation from the poem _Crag Jack's Apostasy_ by Ted Hughes

Lisa thinks that she should have known things were going to go badly when, a few days after Vlad had left on his latest journey, one of the women to whom she’d been tending through a difficult pregnancy had met her white-faced at the kitchen door when Lisa had gone to check on her. There was nothing so difficult yet about Ioana’s pregnancy that Lisa hadn’t been able to remedy with her knowledge of herbalism, but the further the woman progressed the more Lisa had wanted to keep an eye on her, already seeing the signs that pointed to trouble surface as they had when Lisa had helped with Ioana’s firstborn. To arrive for their arranged checkup and be told in a strained whisper that Ioana’s husband had forbidden her from seeing Lisa again because the new Bishop had spoken out against her was not so much as shock as one more tally on Lisa’s personal counter of frustrations with the Church. 

Now, as Lisa Fahrenheit Tepes creeps through the forest underbrush as silently as she can while her home burns behind her, she’s grateful that Ioana had pleaded with her to return home instead of giving in to her temper and storming into the cathedral to give the Bishop a piece of her mind. 

Adrian crouches beside her, shapeshifted into the form of a wolf to better help guide her through the dense underbrush, and Lisa presses her face into the down-soft fur of her son’s lupine shoulder and draws in a deep breath. If she thinks too hard about her situation now she’s afraid she’s going to scream with pent-up anger; more than fifteen years living happily and peaceably in  Târgoviște gone up in smoke because of a self-righteous cleric with something to prove. Lisa thinks of every face she saw in the mob that came to kill her whose bedside she’d sat vigil at during illness or whose children she’d helped see into the world and indulges, for a moment, in the kind of vicious and uncharacteristic hate she knows to her soul she rescued Vlad from when she came into his life. 

The hatred burns out as soon as it comes to her, leaving her cold; sitting on the ground in the woods wearing a heavy cloak and her boots over her nightgown, with her doctor’s bag and a sack full of everything she’d thought to grab before hoisting herself out a window with Adrian’s help and dashing for the concealing darkness of the trees before the mob could see her. Lisa is a sensible and realistic person, and for all that it pains her to see her home and equipment burn and know that the people of Târgoviște who were her neighbors and even friends will be left without medicine, she also understands the fear and darkness in which they live their lives, where killing an innocent woman was easier than facing the fact that the Church--and the new Bishop, especially--denied them the science that could ease their existence and bring greater understanding of the world.

During her apprenticeship and later courtship with Vlad, she’d been dazzled by the combination of science and magic that powered his castle. The innovations borne of the time and freedom to experiment without persecution as well as access to precious manuscripts not only from the foremost schools in Europe but from the East as well had been phenomenal; Lisa’s work as a doctor after they’d wed and she’d convinced Vlad to attempt life among human people didn’t even begin to touch a fraction of the marvels of electrical light and contained fire that she knew existed. It had frustrated her, at the time, to realize that even if she could somehow circumvent the Church she would still have to contend with explaining each miniscule step of progress so people could grasp even a basic understanding of what science could offer the world. But she hadn’t given up, willing to devote her life to laying even just the outline of a foundation if it meant that some day things might be improved. 

Vlad had chided her, sometimes, his natural pessimism in regard to human nature lessened but never completely undone by the happiness of their union and Lisa’s counterpoint optimism. She understood, at heart, that it was not truly his view of humans that motivated him to question why she would want to spend her life in such thankless service but any number of differences they had between them--even teased him sometimes, her fine nobleman’s eloquent disgust at some aspect of simple life too amusing to resist--but rather that he understood the darkness they lived their lives in and that even with the best of intentions Lisa placed herself in danger each time she sought to educate about something or go against the Church’s teachings to ease suffering. 

As much as she had been willing to take herself into danger, however, as soon as Adrian was born Lisa realized that she could never give all of herself to her mission. Braving the dangers posed by the Church to spread knowledge and healing was something Lisa could choose for herself, but never for her son. So she had planned: in between nursing her son with milk and watching Vlad prick his fingers to nurse him with blood; the joy of Adrian learning to crawl and walk; the shock of the first flickers of true  _ talent _ for magic like his father had rather than Lisa’s own hard-won understanding of it; the expected-unexpected surprise when she had one day looked at her son and seen a fine young man rather than a boy. She had planned for a day when she would need to protect the people she loved by protecting herself. 

For all that she had hoped it would never happen, not a sennight after the new Bishop came to Târgoviște Lisa was woken in the night by the sense of urgency imparted by the cantrip ward bounding her property being crossed with ill-intent. She had risen and gathered all the things she had planned to take with her if she ever needed to go, she had gently woken Adrian from the light sleep he sometimes fell into during the last of the small hours as dawn approached, and she had hitched up the skirts of her nightdress and climbed onto the table to unlatch the window. They had retreated into the deep shadows of the woods and kept going, Lisa unable to stop herself from glancing back to catch sight of faces and figures in the torch light, her hearing not as acute as her husband and son’s but enough to catch the Bishop’s sermonizing as he led the mob in burning her home. Lisa’s skills in magic were not anything that could have said to come naturally, and spells her husband could weave and conjure with little effort required intense preparation and support from complex mathematics for Lisa to manage. But she had spent years preparing for this night, and so when the fire consumed their home it consumed a wavering illusion of Lisa herself, a parlour trick that would never fool anyone looking closely, but more than enough, through fire and smoke and darkness, to convince an adrenaline-fueled crowd held almost in thrall by a rhapsodizing Bishop that a woman had attempted to hide from them and instead been caught in the blaze. 

When the dawn broke over the trees Lisa had followed the carefully traced path she’d marked out years ago, Adrian by her side, once again in the form of a young man as he helped his mother carry her belongings. The trees cast shadows enough for Adrian to walk beneath--Vlad had said that as he matured he would perhaps, as a dhampir, be greater than any true vampire, but for now he bore weaknesses from both his vampire and human blood--until the reached the banks of the Ialomița river, far enough away from Târgoviște that they could avoid being found along the stretch of the river that ran past the city. At a neatly-hidden mooring post that Lisa had maintained through the years there was a small boat, and Lisa packed her belongings onto it while Adrian stood unhappily in the darkness beneath the trees, well away from the dangers of sunlight or the disquieting feeling of being near running water. When she had finished, Lisa made her way back into the shade of the trees, pulling a dress on over her nightgown and spreading open the heavy capelet of her cloak as Adrian shifted his shape into a very small--and quiet adorable, Lisa thought--swarm of bats to roost comfortably under the heavy fabric near Lisa’s collar while staying out of the sunlight. 

Climbing into the boat, Lisa took up the oars--not willing to risk the sail being seen from the shore, yet--and began to row in the direction of the nearest city with a gateway to the castle.


	2. pray that I see more than your eyes

Returning to the burned-out ruin of a home is had been perhaps the cruelest moment of Vlad Dracula Tepes’ life. Throughout his long life he had rarely felt such deep and profound pain as listening to a weeping peasant woman recount how the Bishop had worked the town into a religious fervor and led them against Lisa--dear Lisa, who sought only truth and light in the world, whose soul had both redeemed and burned him with its purity--to trap her in their home and burn it to the ground with her inside. 

There are at least a few who mourn Lisa among these mortals is not enough to stop the dizzying rush of maddening rage that comes to him between one moment and the next as the old woman--who had come to see Lisa before, and whose name Vlad had never bothered remembering--lays her offering of flowers and leaves; casting frightened looks at Vlad as she does. He is aware, distantly, that the simple glamours that made him appear as a mortal man to the mortals they lived among have shredded away to reveal his proper form; the anger and power that seethe under his skin too potent to be contained by the whisper-thought illusions he’d woven around himself what seemed like a lifetime ago when he’d left on his journey. 

Staggering into the ruins of their  _ home _ \--not a home like the castle, but the home where his  _ heart _ had lived, where he’d gone willingly for Lisa’s happiness to try the world anew--Vlad can see the vague shapes of heavily charred furniture and the ashy remains of the life they’d built in this house. Their love of the delicate arts of chemistry and alchemy were something he and Lisa had shared, an exultation, for Vlad, to find a mind as keen and open to the possibilities of the greater world as his own. He can see that once the fire hit the chemistry bench it would have been impossible to stop--shards of glass scattered and melted around it, distinct patterns where the chemicals had spilled and burnt and added fuel to the flames--but also, as he shifts his center of balance and begins to glide over the floor rather than walk upon it, he cannot find any bones. 

He feels, if not foolish, then at least somewhat unsettled that grief had taken him so strongly that he had forgotten Lisa’s instruction to always make absolutely sure something had happened to her before jumping to conclusions, or worse, rash actions. Lisa was a woman of hope and belief that there was good in all people, but she had no illusions about who she’d wed. It had been strange, for Vlad: Lisa knew who and what he was and yet held no fear of him; she stood upright and true in a world Vlad had retreated from long ago, some deep and profound quality within her making it so that when she demanded that people be  _ better _ they desired to do so for her. Vlad had done so, feeling as though he were not a vampire, or master of arcane sciences and magicks, or even a prince, but merely a man who had been too far and away to be reached in the dark, and suddenly Lisa had taken his hand and with the light she cast, led him away from that place of loneliness. 

To think for a moment of losing her is the deepest agony, and more, Vlad’s heart wrenches as he thinks of Adrian, who would have been there to bear witness and perhaps even be endangered by the violent mob. 

Calling upon the power of his Bloodline, Vlad reaches out forcefully with his magicks; it is easiest and most direct to locate Adrian, and if his wife has escaped then their son will be with her. The feeling of relief that floods Vlad when his call is answered is indescribable; the soft brush of Adrian’s mind against his own--somewhat fussy, as Adrian usually is when awoken during the day, and with the distinct fragmented quality of being in the form of bats--speaks of relative safety, although Vlad can feel the sense of running water near enough to deduce that sleep is his son’s chosen alternative to having to be awake and aware of travelling by boat. The echo of his blood calling to his blood is enough that beyond Adrian, Vlad can sense the whisper of vitality that is Lisa, and as his heart broke at the thought of her death, now it heals and is heartened anew at the cleverness of the woman he loves. 

For all that he is a scientist and sorcerer, one thing that Vlad lacks--although he will see it more than remedied, very soon--is a direct bond from his mind to Lisa’s. Adrian is both his child and his Childe--sired by Vlad in every sense--and the bonds forged by blood between them are deep and inescapable; Vlad could find him from the other side of the world, and no spells or wards could cloud his ability to do so. Lisa, however, is not of his Blood no matter if she is his heart. She is not a vampire. She is not even particularly a witch or denizen of the netherworld through which such arcane beings move that he could put some ward or sigil on her to reach her in such ways. Lisa is simply a woman who understands the world and the way nature, both of the arcane and scientific varieties, functions in such an intuitive way that be it through experimentation or calculations she can find a way to order things to her will. 

It is perhaps what Vlad admires most about her; the great power of will that drives Lisa and gives her such strength as to be both earthly and unearthly. 

The sense he can get of Lisa now, adulterated by distance and tenuous in strength though it may be, is of the same profound determination he felt from her when they first met. Throughout the course of their marriage, there had been occasions where Vlad was gifted with small tastes of Lisa’s blood--as sweet and precious as the rest of her, and something he had never taken lightly, the pure essence of her--and in return Vlad had shared his own blood, a sip, here and there, but potent nonetheless. Enough that as a woman of fifty Lisa looked decades younger than her proper age; enough that they were joined closely enough to create Adrian together--that just the thought of his wife in his bed, delicate mouth barely a whisper along the already-healing mark where he’d drawn one sharp nail was enough to make his blood hot. Enough that he can reach out and brush gently against her mind, but they cannot speak to one another as Vlad could with Adrian. The image that comes to him is of a small boat, bobbing along against the current of the Ialomița river. He is immersed for a moment in Lisa’s senses: the sunlight on the water and the lapping of the current against the sides of the boat, the smell of the fine spray that splashed along with each pull of the oars, the heavy warmth that shifted and curled over her shoulder that echoed with the feel of their son; relief, both to be safe and to feel Vlad’s presence. It is all he can do to stop from flooding her senses with his own relief, letting Lisa’s own rush of love anchor him. Among the half-formed images he receives is a vague sense of her destination--the castle--and her location--somewhere north of Târgoviște along the river. 

Lisa is safe. Adrian is safe. They are on their way home. 

Vlad disappears from the burned ruin of their former home in a shift of wind, he reappears in the home of the new Bishop of Târgoviște in a ruinous storm of fire. When the corrupt priest has suffered through the same fate he intended for Lisa, Vlad leaves, the fire scouring away any trace of his presence. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok i dont want to shock anyone but vlad and lisa Definitely banged? they Banged ok? it was Wild

**Author's Note:**

> to get the Mood i had writing this, listen to beethoven's 7th symphony 2nd movement on repeat about twenty times straight
> 
> alucard's bat form is, despite it being entirely the wrong continent, a little bunch of honduran white bats. because they're adorable. find a picture of them doing that thing where they all hide under a leaf and that's what alucard is doing under lisa's capelet.


End file.
